Tuesday, March 25, 2008

DALSA Digital Cinema today announced that the next James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace, starring Daniel Craig as James Bond, will feature a complex visual effects shot captured with eight DALSA 4K Origin cameras.The details surrounding the cameras' use are being kept a secret for the time being. However, the company revealed that the technically ambitious visual effects shot featured Craig and actress Olga Kurylenko, and involved simultaneously shooting with eight shutter-synchronized DALSA Origin 4K cameras. Quantum of Solace, the 22nd James Bond film and the second to star Daniel Craig, is scheduled for release on October 31st, 2008 in the UK, and November 7th in the US and internationally.

The decision to go with DALSA was made by Visual Effects Designer, Kevin Tod Haug. Kevin remarked, "The DALSA Origin was the only uncompressed, high-resolution, low-noise camera system we could count on to do what we needed to do. The folks at DALSA were completely supportive of all our complex needs. We could not have done this sequence without them."

DALSA shipped all the camera packages from Los Angeles to Movietech Camera Rentals at Pinewood Studios. Working closely with Movietech, the cameras were all prepped for the complex shoot. The eight DALSA cameras recorded their data to eight CODEX® digital disc recorders. Then, after the successful shoot, the CODEX disc packs were delivered to sohonet® in London for backup, after which the RAW 4K files were delivered to Double Negative in Soho for rendering and final compositing.

David Stump, ASC, the consulting VFX cinematographer, collaborated with Director of Photography Roberto Schaefer, ASC on the shoot. Stump observed, "Working with uncompressed 4K gave us the ability to mine the maximum amount of detail from the scene. The low noise floor of the DALSA enabled us see every nuance of detail from the dark blacks of the clothing."

"We were incredibly excited to be chosen for this complex part of the movie," commented Rob Hummel, President of DALSA Digital Cinema. "It was amazing as we watched all eight cameras shooting and pouring data into the CODEX disc units. In total, we recorded over 3.8 gigabytes of image data every second. After a year of fine tuning the DALSA camera system, we felt we were ready to put the camera to the test. Of course, passing this particularly tough test, with eight cameras synchronized together, was the best outcome I could imagine!"